Reporter who survived submarine stuck under Titanic propeller ‘thought it was the end’

By Mary K. Jacob
New York Post

Stories of daredevils who have taken the 12,100-foot descent down to the bottom of the ocean to view the Titanic are coming to the surface and detailing their experience of being seconds away from death.

More than 20 years ago, Michael Guillen was the first correspondent to travel in a Russian submarine to the Titanic wreckage site in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Canada.

Guillen, also a physicist, survived a chillingly similar ordeal to those currently lost on the submersible. On Sky News, he revealed that a horrifying incident while under the wreckage left him close to dying.

In September 2000, Guillen, 63, departed from Halifax, Canada to make the dive down to the bottom.

“When the Titanic sank, it broke into two pieces, the bow section went straight down. The stern did a somersault,” Guillen explained. “And so it exposed it when it landed on the bottom, it exposed the propeller. So when we toured the bow, there was no problem. There was a moment of silence we had just for the sake of the victims there.”

Guillen revealed that seeing the wreckage up close was very “somber” and “very haunting.”

What happened next would stick with him for the rest of his life.

Guillen said he noticed a giant propeller. Comparing it to the size of the submarine, he said it was a “mosquito” against the blades of the propeller.

“I remarked to myself how shiny it was, because it’s got brass, and so it doesn’t corrode the way the rest of the Titanic has. And as that happened, as I was just dazzled by this giant propeller, I noticed we were speeding up and that seemed strange to me, I thought we should be slowing down.”

They ended up being caught up in a very high speed underwater current that forced their submarine to slam right into the blades.

“[We] became trapped behind the blades of the propeller,” Guillen revealed. “And not only did we feel the collision, but also a huge piece of the Titanic started falling down on us. And we knew we were in trouble.”

Guillen quickly panicked and began to think there was really no way out of this.

“This voice in my head actually said to me, and I’ll never forget the words, ‘this is how it’s going to end for you.’”

“And for me, as a correspondent who had been to the North Pole, the South Pole, covered the Persian Gulf War and other places where I was in harm’s way, had always managed to survive it,” Guillen said. “For me that was that was a bitter pill to swallow. I thought of my wife, I’d never see her again … I don’t like recalling that experience.”

“It took me the better part of a half hour or more, as our pilot tried to jog us out, and he wasn’t succeeding. I finally really hit a brick wall and realize, no, this is the end of it.”

An hour later, they were able to wiggle out of the trap.

“By the grace of God, and by the skill of our pilot, who was a former MiG pilot, he was able to finally extricate us after the better part of an hour.”

But after that hour, they still had to think about getting back to the surface, which would take more than two hours.

“It’s an experience that I’ll never forget my life and my heart goes out to these people who are lost,” Guillen said, choking up. “Just I’m just so sick to my stomach. to think of those poor people down there.”

The submersive is carrying British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, along with French Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet, 73, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61.

Meanwhile, a German adventurer who explored the Titanic wreckage on the same submersible that disappeared has labeled the voyage a “suicide mission.”

“I was incredibly lucky back then,” Arthur Loibl, 60, told German outlet Bild of his hair-raising aquatic adventure.

He undertook the perilous underwater odyssey in August 2021.

“It was a suicide mission back then!” exclaimed the Bavarian entrepreneur, recalling his own journey into the abyss. “The first submarine didn’t work, then a dive at 1,600 meters had to be abandoned.”

Loibl explained that they ended up launching five hours late due to electrical issues — which he suspects is to blame for the Titan crews’ current predicament.

Not only that but right before the voyage, the bracket of the stabilization tube — which balances the sub — tore and had to be “reattached with zip ties,” he said.

The cramped conditions on board the Titan weren’t exactly reassuring either.

“You need strong nerves, you mustn’t be claustrophobic and you have to be able to sit cross-legged for ten hours,” described the aquanaut, who has circumvented Titanic’s remains twice in Titan.

The vessel has been missing since Sunday and has fewer than 41 hours of breathable oxygen left, the US Coast Guard reported Tuesday.

Naval experts say the wreckage is in such a position that it will be a “difficult” recovery mission.

Operated by OceanGate Expeditions, the submersible, known as the Titan submersive, holds only up to five people.

“It’s very worrying. It could have become entangled in the wreckage of Titanic, we don’t know yet. The wreck site is a long way from anywhere,” former Rear Admiral Chris Parry said during an appearance on Sky News.

“The only hope one has is that the mothership will have a standby craft that can investigate immediately what is going on.”

On Tuesday, Canadian airplane aiding in the search for the missing Titanic-bound submersible recently detected “banging” every 30 minutes in the area where the vessel lost radio contact with its surface ship.

a Tuesday email obtained by the outlet from the Explorers Club, of which one of the passengers aboard the submersible is a member, noted the “tapping sounds” were detected around 2 a.m. local time, “implying crew may be alive and signaling.”

“RCC Halifax launched a P8, Poseidon, which has underwater detection capabilities from the air,” read the email updates sent to DHS.

As a result of the development, a remotely operated underwater vehicle was rerouted to the vicinity where the sounds were heard, but so far the searches have come up empty, the Coast Guard said.

“The data from the P-3 aircraft has been shared with our U.S. Navy experts for further analysis which will be considered in future search plans,” the Coast Guard wrote in the brief update posted on Twitter.

In 2019, the Titan submarine set a world record as the first non-military manned in a state-of-the-art five-person submersible to take a dive team of four down 3,760 meters (12,336 feet) under the ocean’s surface.

On Saturday, Harding posted on Facebook announcing his plans to partake in the expedition.

“I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic,” he said.

“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023,” Harding added. “A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. We started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada yesterday and are planning to start dive operations around 4am tomorrow morning. Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do.”

ives can last up to 10 hours each, and passengers get a bit more space inside than in typical vessels.

“The interior of Titan is roomy compared with traditional deep diving submersibles,” a caption on its social media says, adding “crew members have ample space to work together to document the Titanic wreck site.”

Titan is lighter in weight and more cost-efficient, according to the company, which says it’s designed to take five people to depths of 4,000 meters (13,123 feet).

The most significant innovation during the construction of the submersible is its real time hull health monitoring system, according to the company.

The most significant innovation during the construction of the submersible is its real time hull health monitoring system, according to the company.

“This onboard health analysis monitoring system provides early warning detection for the pilot with enough time to arrest the descent and safely return to surface,” the company says, by utilizing co-located acoustic sensors and strain gauges throughout to analyze effects of changing pressure as the vessel goes deeper. “The proprietary Real Time Hull Health Monitoring (RTM) systems provides an unparalleled safety feature that assesses the integrity of the hull throughout every dive.”

Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate said in a 2022 interview with Dan.org that the submersible was built unlike anything else before.

“Essentially, the difference is the carbon fiber and titanium pressure vessel,” Rush said. “People have successfully used carbon fiber for yachts and aircraft but hadn’t yet applied it to crewed submersibles. A lot has changed in the past 50 years. We now know a lot about composites and how to manufacture and test them to make sure they are OK.”

On April, 15, 1912, the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. At the time, it was known as the biggest steamship in the world, carrying more than 1,400 passengers. The Titanic was en route to New York on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic from the United Kingdom.

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https://nypost.com/2023/06/21/reporter-recounts-harrowing-2000-trip-to-visit-the-titanic/